Charlotte has again shown up in the John Locke Foundation’s By The Numbers report with the highest per-capita tax burden of big cities in North Carolina, but that isn’t stopping public officials from increasing it more to pay for arts projects.

Members of a panel that includes four Charlotte city councilmen have been mulling six high-ticket projects wanted by the Arts & Science Council, the main decision-maker, about spending money on cultural projects in Mecklenburg County.

Beyond the six projects — estimated to cost about $142 million — the ASC has long-term plans for more projects because the city requires “a new vision” for its cultural offerings. The advisory group devised a 25-year plan that would demand millions of dollars more in public money for years to come.

The Charlotte City Council hesitated in May when it was presented with the six priority projects. But now it seems fully prepared to find a way to fund capital costs through a combination of new taxes and fees, and through tax-increment financing, which voters statewide approved as a constitutional amendment in November.

The goal of the six projects is to develop a concentration of cultural attractions uptown, where the city’s banking power base conducts business.

“The uptown’s never lost, so I wouldn’t bet against them,” said Don Reid, a former city councilman. “Charlotte is famous for this. We need everything in the uptown area,” he said sarcastically.

In an effort to prove the value of the six projects to the city, the ASC commissioned a study of the “net economic impact” that the projects would have on the Mecklenburg County economy. The group enlisted a UNC-Charlotte economics professor, Dr. John Connaughton, to conduct the study. He is often chosen by public agencies to estimate the direct and indirect effect that special projects, such as sports arenas, will have on surrounding economies.

The six projects are the construction of an Afro-American Cultural Center; an auxiliary facility for space needs and other arts support; renovation of the Discovery Place museum; relocation of the Mint Museum of Art to uptown; construction of a 1,200-seat theater; and a museum to house the art collection of Andreas Bechtler.

Connaughton said that the projects would generate $217 million for the local economy during their construction, and that they would create 1,725 jobs. After the projects are complete, he estimated that operations would produce another $20 million for the economy and 324 more jobs.

“It is clear that the economic impact of the projects will have a significant and ongoing positive effect on the Mecklenburg County economy,” Connaughton said.

But studies such as Connaughton’s — often used to justify pricey capital projects favored by politicians, developers, and business leaders — rarely consider alternative uses of the public money they want. Nor do they take into account additional costs in public services for the new projects.

“The economic impact doesn’t look at what it would be spent on if it wasn’t expropriated in taxes,” said Robert Mulligan, an economist at Western Carolina University. Thus the estimated impact is not a net figure, which could well be zero or worse.

Local officials interviewed for this story had little regard for Connaughton’s study, and a few didn’t even read it.

“If you believed all their numbers, the best thing you could do is vote for every capital issue that comes down,” said Don Lochman, a Republican city councilman.

Despite their skepticism, city leaders of all political stripes are expected to support funding all of the projects through likely increases in car rental taxes, parking fees uptown, additional fees on tickets to the new facilities, and tax increment financing. Another example of creative funding for the projects is to place them in locations with private institutions. The 1,200-seat theater is expected to be built into the ground floor of a new Wachovia tower, where the tax revenue the building generates would be earmarked to pay off the city’s $20 million in bonded debt for the theater.

The panel, consisting of four councilmen and four arts leaders, were expected to release their recommendations shortly after Carolina Journal’s publication deadline.

“If we didn’t have the arts, we wouldn’t have Bank of America and Wachovia,” said Republican Councilman John Tabor. “We used to have low taxes, but that’s out the window now.”

Paul Chesser is associate editor of Carolina Journal.